


He Shall Wear the Sword and Crown

by tomato_greens



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Minor Character Death, Psychopathology & Sociopathy, Translation Available
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-13
Updated: 2011-05-13
Packaged: 2017-10-19 09:11:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/199235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tomato_greens/pseuds/tomato_greens
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John did it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	He Shall Wear the Sword and Crown

**Author's Note:**

> BBC Sherlock dark!John ficlet. I dunno, yo. This should be a much longer fic but I'm not comfortable in the Sherlock 'verse and I have other things to write, so as yet it stays this length. Maybe someday. Title from a misremembering of a lyric that I like better this way. Also, I definitely can't write like British people talk. ;______; BUT I TRIED.

"Tea?" John asks, holding up the kettle like an offering.

Sherlock shakes his head without bothering to move up from the couch. He's thinking.

John shrugs amiably and heads into the kitchen. The gas of the stove clicks on, ignites, and John's chin is lit briefly in profile, as unassuming and odd and lovely as the rest of him. His jumper is hideous and just shy of oatmeal-colored, like it's been cooked and left to sit for too long. He wanders back in and drops into the armchair, loosening up his left wrist with a small grunt.

Something about the sound flicks a switch in Sherlock's hindbrain, and he _knows_.

"It was you," he breathes.

"Hmm?" John says.

"It was you," he says. "You did it."

"Did what, exactly?" John asks, quiet.

Sherlock sits up and stares straight at him. John's expression is pinned somewhere between baffled and amused, but his hand gives him away––steady as a tick. "You killed her," he says.

"Sorry?" John says. "I did what?"

"You _killed_ her," Sherlock says. "Irene."

"I don't––follow," John says. "Who's Irene?"

Sherlock ignores him in favor of steepling his fingers and thinking––something that infuriates John much more than he'll ever let on.

"Are you talking about Mycroft's friend?" John asks, feigning confusion much better than Sherlock ever would have guessed he could have when they'd met two years ago. "She was a bit off, I suppose, but she seemed lively enough last Thursday."

"Ah, yes, well, that was last Thursday, though, wasn't it," Sherlock says.

"This is less marvelous than usual," John sighs.

"I don't know how you did it," Sherlock admits. "But I will, I'm sure."

-

Obsession is hard to hide, is the thing of it, so when Sherlock finds a picture of himself in Irene's dog's handler's hideaway drawer, where the handler apparently keeps a stash of slightly inauthentic checks and a UCL diploma that may or may not be real, everything clicks into place: Irene, her relationship with Mycroft––and really, Sherlock chides himself, that should have been the first clue, because who would ever be attracted to Mycroft?––the totally unidentifiable female body cooling in St. Bart's right now.

There's no evidence, of course. It's all purely hypothetical, a crime that can't be proven true, and that, Sherlock can forgive easily, but never ever forget.

-

"John, John, John," Sherlock chants, as he runs into the flat. "John."

John glances up from where he's communing with the telly. "Hmm?" he says.

"Hi," Sherlock says, and straddles him.

"This is a bit of a shock, I must admit," John says, fairly noncommittally. "Also, you're blocking my view, here."

Sherlock ignores him like he always does whenever John says something idiotic and leans in close to sniff at the juncture of jaw and shoulder.

"Bit not good," says John, but his hands are now resting on Sherlock's hips and he's holding himself stiffly enough that Sherlock's dead certain he's interested.

"I know how you did it," Sherlock says. "I know. I saw the picture."

John shakes his head like he doesn't understand, but Sherlock sees the whole thing laid out before him with the inevitability of a stream or an altar, devotion and friendship and something bordering on the edge of endless loyalty, and all of it is pointing straight at him.

"John, John, John," he chants, "you don't understand, John. I don't care."

John stiffens even further. "Sherlock, you're beginning to––"

"I'm not beginning to anything," Sherlock says, "John, it's you, it's been you all along," and he kisses him, and John kisses back, and then they're headed towards something bigger than themselves, a planet of a something, forever and ever, into the dust of the universe's end.


End file.
